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Satellite, Cable-TV Companies Target Large Hispanic Market

By

Wilson Li&eacute;vano

Updated Feb. 21, 2006 12:01 a.m. ET

Satellite and cable-TV companies are increasingly courting the nation's fast-growing Hispanic audience with multichannel packages of Spanish-language programming, bringing more choice to a market long dominated by networks
Univision Communications Inc.
and Telemundo.

Pricing and other terms vary. Cablevision, for example, offers 31 channels in Spanish for $4.95 as an add-on to regular cable service. Dish Network's Dish Latino, starting at $24.99, offers the same number of channels but can be purchased separately. Comcast Selecto starts at $49.35, including basic cable service.

Until recently, TV shows aimed at the nation's Hispanics were largely imported from Mexico. Driven by the popular sitcom "El Chavo" and soccer games, mostly from the Mexican league, Galavision, a unit of Univision, has been the leader on Hispanic cable. The plot of "El Chavo," which means "the kid," revolves around the exploits of a child -- played by a well-known adult comedian -- who lives in a barrel in the yard of a Mexican neighborhood. The show attracts an average of 500,000 viewers every weekday.

"The content of [the networks] for the most part is from Mexico. Fifteen million people from other parts of Latin America never got anything with the exception of Mexican content," said Javier Prelooker, director of DirecTV Para Todos.

Each of the newer entrants in the market has at least one channel from each Spanish-speaking country in Latin American, except Cuba, and two from Spain, helping them reach out to a range of a nationalities. The satellite or cable operators either make direct deals with the channels themselves or with such companies as Castalia Communications Corp., an independent producer and distributor. Both DirecTV's Mr. Prelooker and Mauro Panzera, marketing director for Comcast, declined to discuss the average cost of the broadcast rights.

The wider array of choices has attracted consumers like Luis Fernando Godoy, a 58-year-old Colombian welder who immigrated to the U.S. with his family nine years ago and now lives in Houston. One of the first things he bought for his home was a subscription to Dish Network. In 2003, when he first saw promotions for Dish Latino, a package of channels that included one from Mr. Godoy's homeland, he didn't think twice before buying it.

Now, almost every day at 7 p.m. Mr. Godoy tunes in to watch "Noticias RCN," Colombia's highest-rated newscast. At 8 p.m., he watches a sports show or a live Colombian-league soccer match, and later he often watches Colombian journalists discuss the day's events on "La Noche."

Dish Network declines to provide subscription figures for its Dish Latino package. DirecTV says its similar package, DirectTV Para Todos, had 900,000 subscribers at the end of October, far more than double the 360,000 it had in January 2004, according to senior marketing director Mark Ryan.

And there is still room for growth. According to Nielsen Media Research, the nation's 11.2 million Hispanic-American TV households watch an average 17 hours of prime-time TV per week, four hours more than the overall U.S. average. Many of them don't have or haven't heard of the Hispanic programming packages.

In the case of cable companies, every subscriber to the packages may not get the same channels. Luis Torres-Bohl, chief executive of Castalia, says his company's deal with Comcast allows him to offer the cable operator's regional offices channels tailored to local demographics. For example, it might offer more Argentine, Mexican and Central American channels in Arizona, reflecting the origins of the bulk of that state's Hispanics.

Satellite, Cable-TV Companies Target Large Hispanic Market

Satellite and cable-TV companies are increasingly courting the nation's fast-growing Hispanic audience with multichannel packages of Spanish-language programming, bringing more choice to a market long dominated by networks Univision Communications Inc.